JetSetGo vs Cobber — A Side-by-Side for Transport and Tourism Operators

Who this is for: Transport and tourism operators — particularly those running combined ferry, tour, and activity operations — who are reviewing whether their current platform still fits the way the operation runs today, or who are choosing a platform for the first time.

Cobber (which incorporates the lineage of ResPax, ResBook, and Livn) has long-standing presence in the transport-and-tourism mid-market. It's a SaaS booking platform with a mature reseller network and integrations. If it's working for your operation, that's a fair reason to stay.

This comparison is for operators where it isn't quite working the way it used to — where capacity has gotten more nuanced, pricing has outgrown the engine's depth, channel mix has shifted, or on-the-day operational tooling has fallen behind. Or for operators choosing between platforms for the first time.

At a glance

Where each one fits best

Cobber fits well when…

• Your product mix is stable, your channel mix is mostly through resellers and agents you've worked with for years, and the platform's network of integrations is part of the value.
• The reservation model — passengers and resources, tracked the way Cobber tracks them — matches the shape of your operation cleanly.
• The team is fluent in the platform, has built reports and workflows around it, and the cost of switching is meaningful.

That's an "if it works, keep it" position. A working reservation platform is worth more than the friction of moving to a different one.

JetSetGo fits well when…

• The operation sells more than one product per booking, or wants to — a transport leg plus an experience, a tour plus accommodation, a transfer plus equipment hire. Treat the combination as one transaction.
• Multiple bookable shapes need to share one inventory pool — passengers and vehicles on the same vessel, tour participants and equipment hire, multi-night cabins on a vessel that also runs day departures.
• The vehicle deck (if you run one) has more dimensions than a simple passenger model handles — lane metres, tonnage, height limits, hazardous-goods classification, EV-charging berths, towed trailers as linked entities the platform knows belong together.
• Multi-modal packaging matters. You sell, or want to sell, the experience as a single package — transport leg, tour, overnight stay, return — rather than as separate transactions the customer has to reconcile.
• Pricing, yield, and revenue management goals have outgrown the existing engine — per-channel tiers, peak/off-peak versioning, dynamic surcharges, sector-based fares, consumption-based vehicle pricing on the same operation.
• Channel control has become a daily problem rather than a strategy. One set of rules ("OTAs see no more than 40% of capacity and only standard-tier inventory; resellers see standard tier; premium tiers stay direct-only") enforced everywhere in real time.
• On-the-day operations are doing real work — fast kiosk POS, QR scanning at boarding, live manifest, weather-cancellation comms, audit-grade reporting that satisfies a council or maritime authority.
• The operation is simpler today but planning growth — adding product lines, vessels, accommodation, packaging, or yield management.
• You want the implementation timeline measured in weeks rather than months.

If two or three match, the conversation is worth having.

Capacity model

Cobber's model handles passenger-and-resource reservations well — the shape that's served the tour and ferry mid-market for years.

JetSetGo models capacity hierarchically and treats passengers, vehicles, equipment, and cabins as distinct entities that consume capacity differently. A single vessel breaks down into a passenger lounge (with premium and standard tiers), a vehicle deck (with under-cover spaces, an open area for trucks, and overflow lanes), and equipment inventory tracked separately. Each level has its own constraints — the under-cover deck enforces a height limit, the open deck has lane-metre capacity. Passenger spots, vehicle space, and equipment hire are allocated independently but the system understands they share a physical asset and a sailing time. (Deeper dive — ferry booking system →)

For tour operators, the same model handles a single vessel running as a snorkel tour at 9am, a glass-bottom-boat experience at noon, and a sunset cruise at 5pm — three products, one vessel, one capacity pool.

JetSetGo introduces only the levers your operation actually needs. The same platform runs a single-route passenger-only ferry and a multi-vessel network with mixed vehicle decks, packaged accommodation, and OTA channel rules. The configuration grows with the operation.

Vehicle deck modelling

This is where the difference is most visible for ferry operators.

JetSetGo models the vehicle deck as multi-dimensional inventory:

• Length in lane metres — the platform meters whatever dimension the operator configures.
• Tonnage — heavy vehicles tracked against tonnage caps per deck.
• Height — under-cover decks enforce height limits.
• Hazardous-goods class — classification at booking, with allocation respecting which decks accept what.
• EV-charging — EV-equipped berths tracked separately from general car spaces.
• Towed-trailer relationships — a vehicle and its trailer travel together, are allocated together, and are tracked as separate entities for reporting and for the rules specific to the combination.

Vehicle classification is operator-defined — no fixed list of vehicle types and no ceiling on the number of attributes. For ferry operators running mixed decks — cars, RVs, trucks, freight, hazmat, EVs, trailers — the difference between multi-dimensional inventory and a flat vehicle count is where peak season either survives or doesn't.

Multi-product packaging

A package in JetSetGo is one bookable transaction combining a transport leg, a tour, an overnight stay, and a return — sold as one transaction with cross-leg availability checks. The platform knows the legs belong together (booked together, refunded together) and tracks them separately for reporting and for rules specific to the combination. If any leg becomes unavailable later, the operator sees the package as a whole rather than disconnected sub-bookings.

For operators selling combined experiences — transport + island tour + accommodation, or any mix where multiple services come together as one customer experience — that changes the shape of the tool. (Deeper dive — multi-modal booking platform →)

Channel control and revenue management

Both platforms connect to OTAs and agent / reseller networks. The structural difference is where the rules live.

JetSetGo's channel rules sit at the inventory layer. Combined with the configurable pricing engine, this is a revenue-management layer that puts the operator first:

• OTAs get a maximum of 40% of passenger capacity on this sailing.
• Reserve 20% of liveaboard cabins for direct bookings; release them 24 hours out if unsold.
• Premium-tier inventory stays direct-only; OTAs sell the standard tier.
• Trade-account customers see corporate-rate inventory; the public sees the public rate.

Rules apply in real time across every channel. Because every channel draws from the same inventory pool and respects the same rules, no double-booking is structurally possible. The platform connects to whatever OTAs the operator's customers actually use; the operator decides which channels get how much capacity.

For operators actively shaping channel mix — keep the OTA visibility for marketing, lean on resellers for inbound, but shift more revenue toward direct over time without manually managing caps every week — this matters.

On-the-day operations

The dimension that surprises operators most often during demos — it's the layer that runs the business once the booking is taken.

JetSetGo treats on-the-day tooling as a core capability:

• Mobile POS at the kiosk, gangway, or trailhead. Card payments via Stripe Terminal. Tickets issued in seconds.
• QR ticket scanning at boarding with cryptographic validation. Boarding-state tracking: Expected → Checked-in → Boarded.
• Live manifest visible to wheelhouse, deck supervisor, guide, and office at once. A walk-up sale appears on the crew's tablet the moment the card clears. A vehicle change-of-class at the gate updates the lane-metre count immediately.
• Customer database that builds itself with every transaction. The operator owns the list.
• Weather-cancellation comms — SMS and email to today's-ticketed customers with a refund-or-rebook link.
• Audit-grade reporting — every ticket, payment, modification, refund, and boarding scan logged with timestamp, skipper, vessel, and payment trail.
• Ticketed non-scheduled product — multi-trip tickets, 30-day passes, season passes, ride packs, with validation tracking per use.

For operators whose on-the-day operations are heavy — peak-season terminal queueing, walk-up surges, weather-driven schedule changes, multi-operator revenue attribution — having the operational tooling native to the same platform as the booking engine changes how the day runs.

Walk-up, same-day, and co-op kiosk models

Some operators take advance bookings. Some operators run walk-up, first-come-first-served, or co-op kiosk models — sometimes deliberately, because their physical operation favours it.

JetSetGo handles both, and treats walk-up / kiosk as a core operating mode rather than a workaround. The kiosk and the website and the OTA connector all draw from one shared inventory pool. A walk-up sale at the kiosk updates the website's availability in the same second. The advance booking from last week and the same-day ticket from 30 seconds ago both land on the same manifest.

For co-op fleets where independent operators sell through one branded kiosk, every transaction is tagged to the operator who took the run — revenue-share calculations become automatic at end of day. (Deeper dive — tour operator software →)

Operators who run walk-up or kiosk-only models get the operational tooling — POS speed, QR scanning, manifest sync, customer database building, weather comms, audit reporting — without being pushed toward an advance-booking model they don't want.

Pricing engine

JetSetGo's pricing engine is one of the most configurable parts of the platform. Pricing is set per service, per route, per season, per channel, and per fare or vehicle type — flat, consumption-based, attribute-based, or any combination:

• Flat — fixed rate per fare or vehicle type.
• Consumption-based — priced by what's actually used. A car by lane metres. A truck by lane metres and tonnage together. A cabin by berth count. Freight by tonnage.
• Per-sector — multi-leg journeys priced per route sector boarded.
• Per-night — accommodated multi-day product priced per night, with itinerary-aware availability.
• Per-package — bundled experiences priced as a package, with revenue allocated to each component for reporting.

Layered on top: versioned price lists that switch automatically by date and a visual rule builder for dynamic rules — early-bird discounts, weekend surcharges above 80% capacity, repeat-customer loyalty, resident concessions, promo codes.

A single operation can run flat pricing on the passenger fare, consumption pricing on the vehicle deck, and per-night pricing on a multi-day package — all in one booking flow, with one price the customer sees. The depth scales with the operator's pricing ambitions.

Migration considerations

What migrates. Customer records, booking history, product catalogue, pricing structures, and OTA and reseller connections. Onboarding is operator-driven, so the configuration sits in your hands.

What to rebuild. Reports built around Cobber's data model will need remapping. Custom integrations through Cobber's API will need re-pointing to JetSetGo's open API. Channel and capacity rules will need to be designed against JetSetGo's inventory-and-channel model.

Operational adoption. Switching to JetSetGo's POS + QR + live manifest setup will look like new tooling. Most operators take a short adoption phase, then find the day-to-day actually gets simpler because the booking system and the operational layer aren't two separate things any more.

Reseller continuity. If a meaningful share of your revenue comes through a specific reseller integration on Cobber's side, surface that on the demo call.

Cutover. Most operators run parallel for a short window — old system for in-flight bookings, new system for new bookings — then cut over fully when the team is comfortable. Onboarding is included.

Your data. Yours. Exportable at any time, in full.

Frequently asked

We're on Cobber and most of our resellers are wired into it. Does JetSetGo work for that? The platform connects to OTAs and resellers your customers work with, has an agent portal for travel agents, and an open API for custom integrations. For a specific reseller you depend on, it's worth a demo call to talk through how that connection would work.

We run a vehicle ferry. Is the vehicle deck modelling really that different? For operators running mixed decks — cars, trucks, RVs, freight, hazmat, EVs, trailers — yes. JetSetGo models lane metres, tonnage, height, hazardous-goods class, EV-charging, and towed-trailer relationships as distinct dimensions the operator configures. For passenger-only or single-vehicle-class operations, the difference matters less.

We sell multi-modal packages today through stitched-together bookings. Does JetSetGo really change that? A package in JetSetGo is one bookable transaction — transport + tour + overnight stay sold together, with cross-leg availability checks, one confirmation, one refund flow. If multi-modal packages are a meaningful part of your revenue, that changes the customer experience and your back-office reconciliation.

Can we keep our OTA listings? Yes. The platform connects to whatever OTAs your customers actually use. The difference is that you set the rules.

How long does the switch take? Most operators are live in weeks rather than months. Onboarding is included.

What if we try it and it isn't the right fit? Your data exports in full. The freedom to leave is part of the value of any tool you adopt.

See if it fits

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See also: tour operator software — ferry booking system — multi-modal booking platform.